Toussaint’s daughter marries a veteran of Savannah

Marie-Marthe, described in the register as the adult legitimate daughter of the free blacks Toussaint and Cecile, married for the second time to a free black of Cap-Francais known as Janvier Dessalines. Her first husband, the free black plantation owner Philippe Jasmin Désir, who had leased Toussaint his coffee plantation, had died three years earlier. The new son in law had a military file. He had served in the local militia since 1767 and in 1779 joined the free coloured volunteers of Saint-Domingue who fought at the siege of Savannah in the American war. The authors draw out the consequence. Toussaint very probably heard first hand accounts of the American revolution from inside his own family, a conflict that won self government while keeping slavery intact, and what he concluded from it cannot be recovered.